To the Prosecutor of ICC
To the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC)
Dear Mr. Karim Khan,
Good morning sir, I hope you enjoyed your breakfast this morning as you reminisce about last night's dreams in your warm bed. Unfortunately, sir, I am so sorry to tell you that more than 600,000 civilians in the northern Gaza Strip, most of them women and children, did not enjoy such a luxury of eating breakfast this morning, nor yesterday, nor the day before yesterday, nor the day before. Even if you go back a few weeks, you will find that they had nothing to eat except animal fodder for surviving. And again, I am sorry to tell you that more than two million civilians, again, most of them women and children, did not have the luxury of sleeping in a warm bed. They did not even feel safe enough to close their eyes and get enough sleep in their tents pitched in the open because they feared being bombed at any moment of the day or night.
As of the moment of writing this letter, more than 30,000 civilians have been killed, and many times more have been injured in the deliberate targeting of homes, hospitals, schools, and even the facilities of United Nations organizations in Gaza. Reports continued of cases of field executions of civilians, and some of them were even shackled and crushed by tanks deliberately. More than 100 unarmed, hungry civilians were killed in cold blood while they were queuing up to get a bag of flour, hoping to eat some bread for the first time in more than four months, but the bullets of treachery were faster to their stomachs than the bread.
Sir, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, have demonstrated so far in various cities of the world, and two people burned themselves to death in front of Israeli diplomatic facilities in protest against this ongoing human tragedy, demanding intervention to stop it. Within a few days, more than 6,000 people signed a petition by Polish human rights activist Magdalena Bartoszek addressed to you, demanding the arrest and prosecution of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Yoav Galant for the atrocities they have committed so far in Gaza. Such a petition, which would have been signed by more than a million if it was not for the unjustified censorship and restrictions practiced by social media for the content related to the Palestinian issue. Such a number would not be surprising with all the anger and helplessness that people feel around the world as they watch these atrocities committed by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) 24/7.
However, all those cries and that appeal have not been heard until this moment, so what is enough to push the ICC to move forward and take an action to stop these atrocities?
Sir, there are hundreds of innocent children who are dying there, and as we speak now, more and more of them are dying every moment, and they no longer have enough time to wait for the political games of the Israeli government and its supporters.
And here comes the question: Do you, Sir, have enough courage to step forward in time and take an action that can help in saving the lives of these innocent children? Do you have the courage to listen to your conscience and take an action as soon as possible to stop further atrocities? Or will you wait until they complete their crime and everything becomes a past? At that moment, it will be a trial not only for the atrocities they have committed so far but also for a complete and successful genocide. And sir, mark my words, it will happen at some point because the pressure of people of good conscience in this world will not stop until justice is served.
Sir, in the Ukrainian case, it did not take long to issue an arrest warrant for the Russian president for less alleged crimes. It is time for you sir to choose how you would like the history to judge you, and what kind of legacy you will leave behind you. Because your silence now is deafening and sends only one message, which is that the ICC is no longer concerned with justice, but rather has become about politics and politics only. It says that ICC has become merely a tool in the hands of some Western political powers, and that you sir (with all due respect to you) are nothing more than a puppet they could move whenever they wanted. So… Is that what you are really trying to say sir with your silence so far? Is that the message you want us to receive and remember you for?
On behalf of all those thousands who filled the streets from the Far East to the Far West, I urge you sir to step forward and take an action today, not tomorrow, to save the lives of these innocent children.
And before I conclude my letter to you sir, let me share a secret with you, from man to man... If you did not do so, the ghosts and images of these children will haunt your sleep and dreams for the rest of your life. A few years from now, the only thing history will remember about you is that you were the man who was capable of doing something to save the innocent children of Gaza but did not dare to do so.
Finally, I cannot keep that annoying question out of my mind... Will my message reach you? Or have you already turned off your TV and social media to avoid seeing all these atrocities so you can turn a blind eye to them and enjoy your breakfast quietly…?
